The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c24.64

v3.c24.64

Hitherto the Muslim kings of Kashmīr had been careless of the religion of their subjects, and free from the persecuting spirit, but Sikandar amply atoned for the lukewarmness of his predecessors. He was devoted to the society of learned men of his own faith, whom his generosity attracted from Persia, Arabia, and Mesopotamia, and it was perhaps the exhortations of bigots of this class that aroused in him an iconoclastic zeal. He destroyed all the most famous Hindu temples in Kashmīr, and the idols which they contained, converting the latter, when made of the precious metals, into money. His enthusiasm was kept alive by his minister, Sinha Bhat, a converted Brāhman with all a convert’s zeal for his new faith, who saw to it that his master’s hostility extended to idolators as well as to idols. With many innocuous Hindu rites the barbarous practice of burning widows with their deceased husbands was prohibited, and finally the Hindus of Kashmīr were offered the choice between Islam and exile. Of the numerous Brāhmans some chose the latter, but many committed suicide rather than forsake either their faith or their homes. Others, less steadfast, accepted Islam, and the results of Sikandar’s zeal are seen to-day in Kashmīr, where there are no more than 524 Hindus in every 10,000 of the population. The ferocious bigot earned the title of Butshikan, or the Iconoclast.